en-US Mon, 26 May 2025 13:48:38 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg ReadStatus9471675700 Mon, 26 May 2025 13:48:38 -0700 /review/show/7601820787 alexander is currently reading The Ace and Aro Relationship Guide: Making It Work in Friendship, Love, and Sex by Cody Daigle-Orians
]]> ReadStatus9471671473 Mon, 26 May 2025 13:47:47 -0700 /review/show/1561853767 alexander started reading Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell
]]> Review7601789240 Mon, 26 May 2025 13:41:06 -0700 /review/show/7601789240 alexander gave 4 stars to Taking Off the Mask (Paperback) by Hannah Louise Belcher
bookshelves: neurodiversity
I actually didn't read this book specifically for the exercises. I've been diagnosed for almost two years now and I'm still learning which parts of me are the mask and which aren't, and it's a real struggle to explain to people things like skill regression, apparent changes in personality, and realizing you have no idea who you are because you've spent your entire life catering to being what others want. I knew I couldn't be the only one who felt this way, but this is the first book that translates how I feel all the time into words other people can hopefully understand. It describes how diagnosis is initially a godsend of sorts, an explanation for all the 'weird' things about you. But then you realize you've been building this shell person around you to protect yourself, and you have to get rid of it to stop yourself from being perpetually burned out. But without it, who are you? What do you like? What are your goals? It's scary, to a degree, to be a middle aged adult and learning you know nothing real about yourself. This book gives you practical advice and exercises to try removing that mask, gradually, and in places where it's safe, and only in places where you feel you need to. It's much more sympathetic to the autistic existence than many autism resources I've read (i.e. resources written by neurotypical people) and it explains so much of the struggle I've been having since my diagnosis. Definitely would recommend regardless, but particularly if you're starting to feel (or always have) that disconnect between your authentic self and how you act around other people. ]]> Review1911877929 Thu, 24 Apr 2025 15:36:05 -0700 /review/show/1911877929 alexander gave 3 stars to The Wasp Factory (Paperback) by Iain Banks
bookshelves: fiction
A book kind of full of oxymorons. Literary in theme but not elevated in style, a lot happens but in a way nothing happens, the main character doesn't feel like the main character, and the purpose of the plot ends up not being what the book has been building to the entire time. A very overused trope comes up as the plot twist and I have mixed feelings about it. It's not really out of nowhere because you can see the hints and know they're hints—just not for what or in what way until the end. The majority of the book makes you think this book will be about what happens to the family when Eric comes home and focuses mostly on Frank's preparations in anticipation of this, and then the ending kind of blows the whole thing sideways. It feels like it's there for shock factor, but I can't tell if that's intentional or just because the author focused on such a different topic for 85% of the book that the subject of the end simply wasn't introduced well enough in earlier pages. Had the book ended differently it could have been 4 stars, or had the book matched the end, it probably could have been 4 stars. But it was like 75% of one book was mashed into 25% of a totally different book that just happened to have the same characters in it. ]]> ReadStatus9294770964 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 16:26:52 -0700 /review/show/7478865536 alexander wants to read The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
]]> ReadStatus9294769872 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 16:26:28 -0700 /review/show/7478864781 alexander wants to read The Family Guide to Getting Over OCD: Reclaim Your Life and Help Your Loved One by Jonathan S. Abramowitz
]]> ReadStatus9294768707 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 16:26:02 -0700 /review/show/7478863972 alexander wants to read Serial Killer Games by Kate Posey
]]> ReadStatus9294767649 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 16:25:39 -0700 /review/show/7478863233 alexander wants to read The Art of Dragon Age: The Veilguard by BioWare
]]> ReadStatus9294765533 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 16:24:51 -0700 /review/show/7478861746 alexander wants to read Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis by Tracy Rosenthal
]]> ReadStatus9294764221 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 16:24:22 -0700 /review/show/7478860803 alexander wants to read Family Business by Jonathan Sims
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